What Drives Gender Gaps in Preferences for Redistribution? New Evidence From the European Social Survey

ABSTRACT

We investigate the gender gaps in preferences for redistribution using data from the European Social Survey (ESS) over the period from 2002 to 2022. Combining individual socio‐economic and demographic characteristics, attitudinal factors, and macro‐level conditions, we confirm that women are generally more supportive of redistribution than men, but show that this gap is highly multidimensional. Through a Gelbach decomposition analysis, our study identifies differences in beliefs and attitudes, especially egalitarian values and political ideology, as primarily associated with the observed gaps. Additionally, we document that not all women are more redistributive than men. In fact, gender gaps are neither uniform across age groups nor along different country‐level conditions. Overall, the gender gap among adults is the most pronounced, even if this evidence varies along macroeconomic contexts, across welfare regimes, and over time. Our findings underscore the complexity of redistributive preferences, representing a challenge for future policy design from a gender‐sensitive perspective.